In recent years, a thermal transfer recording medium comprising a support and a heat softening layer provided thereon have come to be widely used with popularization of a thermal transfer apparatus for a word-processor.
However, a conventional thermal transfer recording medium has a problem that printing quality is liable to be affected by surface smoothness of a receiving medium (transfer paper etc ) and to be noticeably degraded when printing speed increases.
Taking note of these conditions, various attempts have been made, where heat softening layers for a thermal transfer recording medium are multiplied, or various additives are added to a heat softening layer, for improving printing quality in printing on a receiving medium of poor surface smoothness.
For example, a method is known, in which a surfactant is added to form high quality printed images free of blurs even on a receiving medium of poor surface smoothness.
However, it has been impossible to add a necessary amount of surfactant because addition of a surfactant induces another stain problem.